According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, the Pittsburgh Steelers are expected to place an original round/right of first refusal tender on QB Dwayne Haskins this offseason. Fowler tweeted the news earlier Sunday morning.
This move comes as no surprise, especially given Haskins’ recent comments that the Steelers told him he’d compete for the starting job this summer. As Fowler notes and as we have written about, that tender would come in at around $2.5 million. None of it would be guaranteed.
Signed just over one year ago today, he’s uniquely a former first-round pick restricted free agent. Even with the lowest and cheapest tender, because he was taken in the first round, any team who would want to sign him away would need to give up a first round pick. Obviously, that has zero chance of occurring, meaning the team can safely tender Haskins for the least amount of money possible without any possibility of losing him.
Haskins did not appear in a game in 2021, spending nearly the entire year as the team’s #3 QB and weekly inactive. He’ll compete with Mason Rudolph and whatever outside competition the Steelers bring in this offseason to become Ben Roethlisberger’s immediate replacement.
Drafted by Washington in 2019, he struggled in his two years with the teams on and off the field. It led to his release mid-way through the 2020 season and after a visit with the Carolina Panthers, Haskins signed with the Steelers in January of 2021.
